when the earth was still flat and the clouds made of fire,
and mountains stretched up to the sky
sometimes higher,
folks roamed the earth like big rolling kegs
they had two sets of arms
they had two sets of legs
they had two faces peering out of one giant head
so they could watch all around them as they talked, while they read
and they never knew nothing of love
it was before the origin of love

the origin of love

and there were three sexes then,
one that looked like two men glued up back to back,
called the children of the sun.
and similar in shape and girth
were the children of the earth
they looked like two girls rolled up in one.
and the children of the moon
were like a fork shoved on a spoon
they were part sun, part earth
part daughter, part son.

the origin of love

now the gods grew quite scared of our strength and defiance
and Thor said "I'm gonna kill them all with my hammer, like I killed the giants."
and Zeus said "No, you better let me use my lightening, like scissors,
like I cut the legs off the whales and dinosaurs into lizards."
then he grabbed up some bolts and he let out a laugh,
said "I'll split them right down the middle. Gonna cut them right up in half."

and then storm clouds gathered above into great balls of fire
and then fire shot down from the sky in bolts
like shining blades of a knife
and it ripped right through the flesh of the children of the sun
and the moon
and the earth.
and some Indian god sewed the wound up into a hole,
pulled it round to our belly to remind us of the price we pay.
and Osiris and the gods of the Nile gathered up a big storm
to blow a hurricane,
to scatter us away
in a flood of wind and rain,
and a sea of tidal waves,
to wash us all away,
and if we don't behave
they'll cut us down again
and we'll be hopping round on one foot
and looking through one eye.

last time I saw you we had just split in two
you were looking at me, I was looking at you
you had a way so familiar, but I could not recognize,
'cause you had blood on your face,
I had blood in my eyes.
but I could swear by your expression that the pain down in your soul
was the same as the one down in mine.
that's the pain that cuts a straight line down through the heart;
we called it love.
so we wrapped our arms around each other,
trying to shove ourselves back together.
we were making love, making love.
it was a cold dark evening, such a long time ago,
when by the mighty hand of Jove,
it was the sad story how we became lonely two-legged creatures,
it's the story of the origin of love.
that's the origin of love.